Aug. 22 Open Thread: Witch Hunt Finds Cohen, Manafort Unable to Float
Even Donald Trump seems to understand that he’s finished now that both Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen are convicted felons; his Nuremberg rally in West Virginia was more subdued than usual, though it still featured the “lock her up” chant when Hillary’s name was mentioned.
Things don’t look any better for him this morning. Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis told “Today” that his client is willing to tell everything he knows and isn’t interested in a pardon. Manafort’s lawyer didn’t resort to the standard “we’ll fight this on appeal” response, instead saying Manafort will evaluate all his options, one of which is cooperating with Mueller. As for why he didn’t do that in the first place, Franklin Foer at The Atlantic attributes it to Manafort creating his own reality, which is another way of saying he believed his own bullshit.
Yesterday’s news avalanche buried a lot of other stories, including the one about California Rep. Duncan Hunter’s indictment for misuse of campaign funds. This plays havoc with November’s election because it’s too late for the GOP to get him off the ticket.
Trump’s legal problems didn’t end with the conviction of his henchmen. A federal judge ruled a lawsuit against Trump’s security team for assaulting protesters.
In other news, students at UNC in Chapel Hill pulled down a Confederate memorial statue, taking matters into their own hands after the GOP junta that runs the state made it illegal to remove Confederate statues. Myself, I’m in favor of invading North Carolina again and putting all the Republicans there on work farms, though I doubt you’d get much work out of a bunch of lazy stump-jumpers.
Former Delawarean and billionaire douchebag Foster Friess tried to buy his way into the governorship of Wyoming by spending $2 million of his own money — not easy in a state with no major TV markets. Yesterday he finished second in the state’s Republican primary, despite an endorsement from the Criminal in Chief.
The Cohen stuff is intriguing. It’s not clear that Cohen has been entirely forthcoming, and Cohen’s facing serious jail time even if he DOES cooperate to some extent. Davis was shilling for, I’m not making this up, funds to help Michael Cohen tell the truth. Apparently there’s a website, but I’m not linking to it.
Rachel Maddow brought this up a couple of nights ago. Cohen apparently hasn’t given up the password to a Blackberry that is in the hands of the Feds. As usual, Rachel takes awhile to get to the point, but it’s worth it:
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/cohen-maybe-not-cooperating-as-much-as-conventional-wisdom-says-1303092291656?v=raila
Mollie Tibbetts, the Iowa college student who had been missing, was reportedly kidnapped and murdered by an undocumented immigrant.
https://abc7chicago.com/employers-cristhian-rivera-passed-background-check/4028143/
Trumpies will make hay of that, but here’s what interests me: The suspect worked at a farm owned by a prominent Iowa Republican, who claimed he had passed background checks including e-Verify. So now I want to know:
Was this guy undocumented or not?
Did he pass background checks or is the employer BS’ing?
Did the employer help him and others get a fake e-Verify report?
If E-Verify failed, what is the flaw? is it a systemic flaw?
Since mothers from Guatemala running for their lives with young children in tow are “illegal” because they can’t present at a “point of entry” for asylum (and let’s be honest, they are prevented from doing that anyway) then I suppose being implicated in multiple felonies (not misdemeanors like immigration violations) will mean that Trump is an “illegal” president.
Right? We have laws!
I await the trolls opinion on this matter.
I know they don’t care about this contradictions But thought I mention it at least.
@puck: Back in 2015, Cato Institute reported that 54% of illegal immigrants run through e-verify were approved for work. Apparently if a person has obtained false documentation, e-verify won’t catch that.
“If E-Verify failed, what is the flaw? is it a systemic flaw?”
Everyone hates illegal immigrants until they need labor that will show up for $3.50 an hour.
https://whyy.org/segments/despite-tough-road-challenger-optimistic-in-del-s-democratic-senate-primary/
I don’t doubt a lot of fake info is submitted to E-Verify. I question whether the employers are complicit in getting the fake ID to pass the system. Especially Republican farmers in Iowa.
IIRC it is illegal to “knowingly” employ unauthorized workers. If you give fake ID that tests legal, the law gives the employer safe harbor if they claim they “didn’t know.”
It isn’t trivial to get fake ID past an honest employer. It is much harder than buying beer underage. First you have to get past the checks in the I-9 form, which required two forms of government issued ID including photo ID. Then the employer submits info on the I-9 form to E-Verify.
I doubt the Iowa farmer’s I-9 records and E-Verify records would stand up to a proper audit. But being a prominent Republican in Iowa, he doesn’t have to worry about that.
“Everyone hates illegal immigrants until they need labor that will show up for $3.50 an hour.
Those employers probably buy hot cars for cheap and are proud of their deal-making prowess.
https://youtu.be/qwWGK6xFWsk
Cenk at the Young Turks takes the piss out of Carper.
@puck: I would think the only difficult part of faking ID is finding a SSN that isn’t already in use. How do you think 54% got through?
“Apparently if a person has obtained false documentation, e-verify won’t catch that.”
That’s correct. There is no positive identification aspect of e-Verify that matches an applicants identification with any form of biometrics that would provide positive identification. If it looks like a duck and has the ducks id, then it must be the duck.’
That does not, however, detract from the effectiveness of e-Verify as one means of ensuring the right to work. What we need is are tats. Everyone gets a bar code. Stolen identification is costing the economy a great deal money.
@Dave: Actually, it’s not costing “the economy” anything. Illegal aliens earning money are part of the economy.
The kind of ID theft that costs people money is done by computer, and your idea won’t interrupt that. Even that economic activity, by the way, is still part of the economy.
If your only experience with fake ID is buying beer, I-9 verification is a higher barrier. Employers are required to examine ID under penalty of perjury.
Form I-9 is required for all employees; E-Verify is optional (unless your government contracts require it). The info on the I-9 is what the employer puts into E-Verify.
Form I-9 says:
and
I’d say some employers need to go down on perjury charges.
“Illegal aliens earning money are part of the economy.”
So is our chronic underclass of the generationally poor and unemployed. Rehabilitate and employ them first. It won’t be cheap. And no, they aren’t going to show up for $3.50/hr.
@puck: And I’d say you don’t know much about fake IDs. I’ve never had one myself, but I’ve seen the ones produced by professionals. I don’t think you know much about them at all. The only problem someone would have, as I say, is that they tend to reuse SSNs.
If you spent as much time on continuing education as you do whining about illegals keeping down your salary, you’d earn more by now.
@puck: Ah, I see. The problem is darkies who won’t work.
You might have missed the fact that this is a liberal web site.
.
Not me. Labor has been racist from jump. So you’re in good company.
Racist? I want to go after the rich white employers. Why are you defending them?
Liberals who want to maintain an underclass of exploited illegal labor are the worst sort of elitists.
I’m not defending them. I’m attacking someone who for years has insisted that we could end “illegal labor” by attacking rich white employers. And now that person claims we need to put “the underclass” to work, ignoring the fact that the underclass has existed throughout human history, in all systems of government and economy. It’s not defending them to point out that, contra to your beliefs, people can fake the ID they need to get a job.
All economic activity is part of the economy. More people in the country = larger economy. It’s really that simple.
It’s not defending anyone to acknowledge that like it or not, the labor market is international. As I’ve pointed out before, we have two choices — bring the cheap labor here, or move the jobs to the cheap labor there. In terms of money flowing to the government, we’re better off with the former.
You’re going to have to decide who YOU’RE actually defending here. Your years-long complaints have tended to be about white-collar immigrants. You don’t seem to understand farm labor or meat-packing work at all.
“More people in the country = larger economy. ”
The economy is bigger then ever but it is going to the elites. More people working for lower wages is what the elites want. Instead of slinging false accusations of racism, stop defending the elitist position and think of some solutions.
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/investigations/2018/08/22/mollie-tibbetts-alleged-killer-iowa-legally-lawyer-missing-student-body-found-brooklyn-trump/1064567002/
Mollie Tibbetts’ accused killer is in Iowa legally, his lawyer says, calling Trump ‘sad and sorry’ for weighing in…
So, there’s that…
maybe all of this will bring about trumps impeachment and then indictment and jail time. followed by new president pence pardoning him and naming him CIA director
“stop defending the elitist position and think of some solutions.”
What, reality is now an elitist position? And since I don’t see this as a problem, I see no need for solutions.
Your position is nationalist, and I give no succor to nationalism. Sorry.
“The economy is bigger then ever but it is going to the elites. More people working for lower wages is what the elites want.”
It’s going to the elites because we’re not recapturing it via taxes. And what elites want is money. They don’t care how they get it, or who they have to screw to keep it.
You apparently think a labor shortage will fix things. That ship has sailed. Your job will be outsourced if they can’t find domestic workers. They can’t outsource ag jobs, so that’s where they concentrate on getting cheap labor. Twas ever thus, and so it will remain.
I live amid the mushroom industry. It’s been around for 100 years and it’s never used domestic workers. California agriculture, same story. The only time they used domestic workers was when Okies were starving in the Dust Bowl.
You keep trying to generalize the issue from your particular problem. It won’t work.
Jezza the absolute hero.
https://mobile.twitter.com/chunkymark/status/1032277427752460288/video/1
Happening all over the world, folks. Can’t be any clearer than that.
Talk about thin gruel. Trump has apparently run out of ‘bright shiny objects’.
In today’s attempt to deflect attention from his serial criminality, Trump today called for, wait for it, a petition drive to make ESPN reverse its ‘spineless’ decision to not televise the National Anthem during NFL games:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/403122-trump-launches-petition-to-force-spineless-espn-to-air-national
Man oh man! … I love that Jeremy Corbin video. Spot on. Thanks for the link.
I’ve started to come to the realization that we’re all fucked…
You’re dumb and confused, though. So we’re probably good.
Socialism will win.